While not planned when I made reservations for TTT2019 last year, this Japan phase has become a return to my roots series of nostalgic visits. A decade ago I dropped by Akita to search for Kenjiro's parents' roots and found, one of his grandmother's gravestone at Ganryuji Temple. Her name was Nakayama.
So we went to Morioka Station to Shinkansen to Akita. This is Day 2 of Golden Week, and all seats were taken on the train we wanted. So we made a reservation on the next train, meaning we had more than a hour to walk around Morioka. We were guided to a bridge and saw a beautiful sight of Mount Iwate.
Iwate has an elevation of 6686 feet, and is called Nanbu Fuji for its resemblance to Mount Fuji. This Morioka mountain was a volcano 700,000 years ago. However, it is still active, with steam and ash emission in 1919 and regular volcanic earthquakes. What a wonderful sight on a crisp, blue day.
We caught the Komachi bullet train to Akita, unlinking from the Hayabusa Shinkansen, which went on to Shin-Hakodate two minutes later:
A complete brunch, with hamburger stew, fried chicken and duck over Caesar salad, with beer and sake, both from this region:
Turns out that we were lucky to get seats on this train, for people were clogging up all the empty space between trains:
There were, of course, cherry blossoms along the way:
In Akita, I learned that the temple site I was seeking was a one-hour taxi ride away, and we had two hours before our bullet train, so we went to something called Neburi Nagashi Kan at the Folk Performing Arts Heritage Center
The Akita Kanto Festival occurs this year from August 3-5.
So on to the bullet train back to Morioka, with Akita sochu and peanut crackers from Morioka. Here are some typical sights:
In Morioka, we went back to Iwate Park, where most of the cherry blossom petals had fallen to the ground:
The hanami was sparsely attended:
We couldn't find anything to eat, so walked into town and looked at the line at Pairon, the most popular place for something locally distinctive called jajamen, a flat-type udon served with meat miso, chopped cucumbers, green onions, picked vegetables and grated ginger. You add grated garlic, hot chili sauce and vinegar to your taste.
However the line was too long, so we walked into town and found another shop:
Good experience that I would highly recommend. On our way out we noticed a line had formed:
Not much progress on my roots search, but our stay in Morioka was just right. Tomorrow, back to Sendai for Japanese Wagyu Beef.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment